The Isle is Full of Noises

If a musical instrument were an animal, what animal would it be?
In the classical orchestra, perhaps something tame and domesticated. The Grand Union Orchestra on the other hand features rarer breeds - 'music raw in tooth and claw'!

The Isle is Full of Noises is designed for families, to give particularly younger children the opportunity to meet some of those less familiar instruments that inhabit our island today, the musicians who play them, and the styles of music they are associated with.

The Isle is Full of Noises has a number of component parts that explore these ideas:

Instrument Menagerie: an opportunity to handle a range of instruments from around the world, introduced and explained by their 'keepers' - the musicians who play them.

Practical workshops: learn about and try out for yourself the styles of music these instruments play.

Performance: a family concert which contains also opportunities for audience participation, featuring instruments encountered earlier in the day in their natural habitat - the Grand Union Orchestra.

The Isle is Full of Noises was originally conceived for the national Family Arts Festival, to complement our spectacular show Undream'd Shores and the music and ideas presented in it, explained fully in this brochure.

For presentation in schools or for smaller scale events, the concert element can take the form of Music in Other Lands, with typically four to six musicians.

In a further variation, this concert in turn can include local young musicians performing music created during workshops, alongside GUO musicians.